The Merc and the Key
by WriterJack
Summary: This story explores an alternate path for Zaeed, had he not been recruited by Cerberus to help fight the Reapers. Romance and steamy bits with an OC ahead!  In-progress: Updated with Chapter 2.
1. Chapter 1

_This is an alternate path for Zaeed (and, eventually, Kasumi) in a game that doesn't have any DLCs attached to it. Just because the DLCs aren't loaded doesn't mean the characters don't exist!_

_This is the first time in quite a while that I've tried my hand at prose, and this is my first fanfic. All constructive critiques are extremely welcome._

_Thanks for reading! :D_

_Zaeed Massani, Kasumi Goto and the Mass Effect universe are ©BioWare_

_All original characters are ©WriterJack_

The music in Afterlife pounded in Captain Liam Adler's temples like a jackhammer, making it difficult to sit in his secluded booth while he waited for the merc he hired to show up. He passed the time by clenching his teeth in irritation, trying to remember why he had agreed to meet the man in Afterlife – of all places, why the loudest and least private location on Omega?

Liam was not fond of crowds, as they often contained the most rude and inconsiderate citizens of any population. Like the obviously drunk human girl who was suddenly making herself comfortable next to him, for example.

"You're looking pretty lonely over here, handsome..." she slurred, her breath wreaking of bottom-shelf liquor. Liam winced, reminded of the kind of wretched hangover cheap liquor brought on and the kind of mistakes one made while under its influence. Disturbed by the smell, he opened his mouth to _politely_ ask her to leave when a low, rough voice stopped him short.

"Beat it sweetheart, you're in the middle of a business meeting."

Both the captain and the nameless young lady turned their gazes to the large, armored fellow who was taking a seat at the booth's table across from Liam. Everything about the man was rugged, from his brutally scarred face to his well-worn armor. The visible parts of his skin were covered with tattoos, and his jaw looked like a solid slab of granite in the low light of the club.

_Zaeed Massani._

The mercenary fixed his dual-colored gaze on the young woman sitting next to Liam, waiting for her to leave. Instead, her brow furrowed in a bleary, drunken anger.

"Back off, old man! M'tryin' to get laid here."

She barely got the sentence out of her mouth before she realized that the business ended of a pistol was mere inches from her face.

"I won't ask you again," Zaeed replied in a low growl, "Get the fuck out of here before I blow that pretty head off your shoulders."

The woman's eyes widened as she clawed her way out of the booth, unable to make her exit quickly enough. The mercenary holstered his weapon, and the two men immediately turned their attention to one another, the girl already forgotten.

"You're Massani, then," Liam stated simply, trying to maintain a casual tone while talking over bad techno rhythms.

"You're a sharp one. What's this all about, then?" Zaeed crossed his arms over his broad chest and kept his singular gaze locked on the younger man. Liam couldn't help but stare at the deep scars on his face, but he figured the man was used to it since he'd allegedly had them for so long.

"I was told you were the best, and I need the best with me in order to retrieve a package."

"You were told correctly. I'm also the most expensive."

Liam had been told that as well, although not specifically _how_ expensive. The client he was working with offered a significant down payment and signed an agreement to partially cover any expenses associated with the package's retrieval, so he could only hope that he had enough to contract the mercenary's help.

"It's an infiltration job on Illium," the captain said as he slid a datapad across the table to Zaeed, "You'd be on a fire team while our security specialist secures the package," it sounded like a cake-walk when he put it so simply, "What kind of numbers are we looking at?"

Zaeed picked up the datapad and skimmed its text while Liam spoke. He didn't even need a moment to consider before he answered, "Four million. Up front."

Holy fuck. Liam kept his exterior composure calm and even, but the mere mention of that number made his heart pound wildly in his ears. His team would have nothing left of their down payment if he agreed to pay, so if the job failed for whatever reason, they'd be left high and dry with no way to pay for... anything. No food, no fuel, no wages.

On the other hand, Zaeed was the best. It wasn't just smoke being blown out of the collective asses of the citizens of Omega – quite of few of them had _seen_ the man in action, and he was feared for a good reason. Having the best of the best would almost guarantee their success, which would make their initial loss a worthwhile investment.

"Plus room and board, I take it?" Liam questioned, already knowing the answer.

"Just the basic necessities, nothing fancy." Well, at least _that_ was reasonable.

The captain repressed a sigh as he lifted his arm and activated his omnitool's banking software, making the appropriate transfers and feeling his heart fall into his stomach as the number of zeroes in his account diminished rapidly.

"Pleasure to have you aboard, Mister Massani."

"'Zaeed' will do. I'm ready to leave when you are."

With a brief nod, Liam silently rose from the booth to signal the end of their meeting and led the mercenary out of Afterlife, toward the nearest docking station. They boarded a mid-sized cargo carrier, obviously second-hand and re-purposed to accommodate a small crew, with a single word scrawled lazily on the body of the ship: _Hazard._

The two men entered the airlock and waited while the decontamination protocols did their thing.

"We need to make a brief stop before we head to Illium," Liam's voice reverberated uncomfortably off the metal walls of the airlock, "We need to retrieve our security specialist."

Zaeed grunted a wordless acknowledgment of his statement just as the airlock doors hissed open.

"Bunks are down corridor C, just follow the blue stripe on the wall. Feel free to grab an empty one," the captain offered before pushing a thumb down on the nearest comm panel, "Jase, set a course for the Hades Nexus, Hoplos cluster, planet Trident. Let's go get our Skeleton Key."


	2. Chapter 2

_Trident: A human-dominated world with over 95% of its surface covered by salt water. _

God _damn_ it was humid.

_The oceans are filled with creatures ranging from tiny bivalves to mammoth vertebrates unequaled even by __Earth__'s whales and ichthyosaurs. _

Why the hell were they taking so long?

_Small archipelagos create what little land there is, and its valuable real estate is fought over constantly. _

Boy, didn't she know it. She had crashed on this sodding rock two local days ago and it took her most of that time to find the tiny sliver of raw land to rest the _Alouette _on. The poor skiff's engines had taken on a lot of water, and she had to eject her remaining fuel stores in order to reduce the craft's weight and make the emergency floatation devices operable. The "solid" piece of "land" that she had found was little more than a sand bank, but the water was shallow enough that she didn't need to worry about defending herself against the hulking leviathans that populated the planet's oceans. Even more fortunate, Trident didn't have any moons, so the tides weren't severe enough to cause any major problems.

The sun was rising, and the dark-haired woman stood upon the nose of the _Alouette, _brushing her teeth with a hand towel draped around her neck as she stared at the vast blue horizon. To keep from overheating, she wore a light gray tank top, accompanied by a pair of boxer shorts that were far too large for her, and she had abandoned her socks and boots almost immediately after her rough little landing. Faint in the background, she could hear her encoded distress beacon's message:

"_This is Hel Girard, crew member of the Hazard supply ship, TS-021-266. Skiff has crashed and in need of assistance, over." _Rinse and repeat.

It was just a matter of time before a local crime syndicate would decrypt that signal and come looking for her ship – nevermind that the boxers she was currently wearing had an obnoxious red-on-white heart pattern that surely made her visible from the stratosphere. Likewise, the planet's hurricane season was fast approaching, and there was no way she'd survive a severe storm in a grounded _Alouette_. Hel put those troubles out of her mind for the moment, waiting patiently for rescue. Liam could be an ass about these kinds of things, but she knew Jase and Cole wouldn't let her down. It would be a local week at the most, she assured herself.

Hel took a mouthful of fresh water from the small paper cup in her hand and swished her mouth clean before turning her head to spit. If nothing else, Trident was at least pretty. Pristine blue water, tolerable weather, fluffy white clouds. It was a god damn still life. So if she _did_ die a horrible death, it would be in a beautiful location with minty-fresh breath.

A warm, humid breeze kicked up as Hel sprawled out on the towel she had lain upon the port wing of her craft. She would eventually need to consider an alternate means of survival and rescue if the _Hazard_ didn't come to pick her up. She was determined, however, to maintain her high spirits until she was sure that was the case – Hel was never one to panic when the chips were down. Hell, maybe she'd work on a light tan while she was here, treat it like a vacation. Her legs were getting pretty pasty from all that space travel.

"_... ship Hazard... 1-266... in Alouette, over."_

Hel's heart lept into her throat and she propped herself up on her elbows, straining to listen more carefully. There was a massive amount of static coming from her speakers, indicating a decryption of her beacon.

Or her emergency power reserves were draining, one of the two.

" _This is... zard... requesting coordinates for retrieval, over."_

The stranded pilot scrambled up the wing and plopped heavily into her cockpit as the vague message kept trying to come through. She put her comm headset on and waited for a follow-up, hoping to high hell that this wasn't some merc group fucking with her and mimicking her transmission.

"_God dammit, woman, do you want to be picked up or not?"_

So they weren't a bunch of useless assholes after all.

"Keep your panties on, ace," she said with a smirk, relieved to hear Jase's voice as she woke up her navigational equipment, "Transmitting coordinates."

It wasn't long before Hel spotted the cargo ship hurtling through the air, gradually getting larger as it closed in on her location. The elongated body of the cylindrical ship reflected the light of the morning sun, its outer plating gleaming in an ugly, mottled brown-and-gray. She had never been so happy to see that magnificent flying turd.

Secure in the cockpit of the skiff, Hel breathed a sigh of relief as she felt the _Alouette_ shudder under the pull of the larger ship's gravity field, and the craft slowly rose into the air in a slow ascent into the _Hazard's_ hangar. The bay doors creaked loudly and painfully as they closed, a sound that signaled relative safety.

"Skiff secured," Jase's voice rang out through the Hazard's intercom, "Starting decontamination and going into orbit."

* * *

The personnel doors of the hangar wooshed open, and three large men walked through them to greet their fellow crew member. The cockpit of the skiff was already popped open, and there was audible shuffling coming from its depths.

"Heads up!"

A large ruck sack was pushed out of the cockpit and landed with a heavy, muffled thud. Hel followed suit, making a clumsy exit from the skiff and landing on her bare feet with a much lighter thud next to her bag. She smirked and rested all of her weight on one leg, propping her hand on her cocked hip as she regarded the three men standing before her: Liam Adler, tall, solid and handsome as always; Cole Richter, Adler's second-in-command with his firey red hair and that insufferable swagger; and a third armored man she didn't recognize, who looked like he had seen better days.

"Did you get it?" Liam asked tersely, getting right down to business.

"Heh. Missed you too, lovebird," Hel kept her trademark sarcastic tone in tact, despite the usual irritation she felt when dealing with Liam, "Maybe I did. Maybe I got _both_ things you asked me to retrieve."

Hel bent down and shoved her arm into her ruck sack, pulling out a locked metal box from within. Holding it aloft, she approached Liam and stood uncomfortably close to him, her expression severe as she stared up into his painfully blue eyes.

"You wouldn't know anything about why my emergency floatation units didn't deploy immediately upon making a water landing, would you?"

The captain didn't say anything in response to her challenge. They both knew the answer to her question – Liam was really, _really_ bad at managing the ship's budget, and he hadn't reserved any funds to fix the damaged safety equipment.

Hel was considerably shorter than Liam, and she looked tiny standing so close to him. He could easily have picked her up and shaken her into submission or something, but he remained silent and unmoving. It seemed as though they were reaching some kind of silent agreement.

"No, of course you wouldn't," Hel cracked a wide, friendly smile as she deposited the box into the captain's hand. She took a step back and turned her attention to Cole, slipping a thumb under the waistband of the boxers she was wearing, "By the way, your shorts are _comfy. _Too big for me, of course, but they were nice and breezy in that humid environment."

"Why... why are you wearing my underwear?" the red-head asked, his pride taking a mild blow at the commandeering of his clothes.

"Perhaps," Hel suggested as she ran her fingers through her hair, "If we all did our own laundry, one might not be compelled to use their crewmate's clothing as emergency-wear."

Cole opened his mouth, ready to provide a smart-assed retort, but nothing came. Hel licked the tip of her finger and made a hatchmark in the air – something she did to irritate Cole when she was right – and turned to face the unknown armored man who had joined her crew in he hangar.

"And who's this handsome fella?" she asked as her eyes rested on his scarred face. She gave no regard to whether or not he would be offended, and watched as his lips twisted into a crooked smirk.

"Zaeed Massani."

His voice was rich and deep, though jagged with age and experience. She noticed that his accent was similar to her own, only... less diluted. She figured he might be from Earth, as that accent was difficult to come by among the spacers and colonists of their species.

"He'll be leading the fire team in the Kassa Fabrication building while you recover the package," Liam added.

Hel stared unblinking at Zaeed, committing his face to memory and more or less sizing him up. She had heard his name before – everyone who had "questionable occupations" did – and he was just what she imagined him to be, so far.

"So soon after Mason?" Hel asked pointedly, turning her head toward Liam. She was issuing another challenge to the captain, and he clenched his teeth in his first visible display of anger toward her.

"Don't start, Girard..." he growled, clenching his left hand into a tight fist. He used her last name rarely, and only when he was livid.

"No, no, I get it. Business as usual," the woman's demeanor had retreated back into friendly-mode. She walked back to her ruck sack and hoisted it roughly over her shoulder, offering a friendly smile to the mercenary as she walked between the three men toward corridor C.

"Nice to meet you, Zaeed. Welcome aboard."


End file.
